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June 17, 2007
New (sick) Abu Ghraib revelations
Seymour Hersh has an article in The New Yorker that reveals disturbing new aspects of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.
Hersh talks to Army Major General Antonio M. Taguba, who led the initial inquiry into the abuses, and seems none too pleased at the behavior of senior officials and the scapegoating of lower-ranking soldiers.
And if you thought the abuses were limited to putting hoods on detainees and hooking up electrodes to sensitive body parts, you'd only be scratching the tip of the iceberg.
Taguba says objects were forced up detainee's rectums, and that he saw video of "a male American soldier in uniform sodomizing a female detainee."
Also disturbing, and puzzling: "Taguba had seen classified documents revealing that there were only 'one or two' suspected Al Qaeda prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Most of the detainees had nothing to do with the insurgency. A few of them were common criminals."
If anyone doubts the pure evil in these acts, consider the fact that, if released, these common criminals probably held a grudge against the United States, and held captive audiences with their friends talking about how they'd been treated. And that has no doubt come back to bite us in the form of the insurgency.
At its worst, this kind of behavior is Draconian. At it's best, it's quite short-sighted.
It's time to fully account for these abuses, and make sure those in power then are no longer in control now. While some may describe conditions on the battlefield as complex and brutal, there's no excuse for resorting to such hellish tactics when someone is disarmed and under your control.
Posted by Greg Sidor at June 17, 2007 03:55 AM